One Piece Episode 590: Steady She Goes… (New Opening!)

One Piece episode 590: “Chopper’s Fury! The Master’s Inhumane Experiments” reveals even more details about the island called Punk Hazard and Caesar Clown’s experiments, while out in the snow Zoro, Sanji (in Nami’s body), and Brook are ambushed as they attempt to find the dismembered samurai.

Giant kids addicted? Not good.

Talk about violent withdrawal symptoms

Usopp subdues the giant berserkers

Smoker’s heart

While I have an enduring attachment to the oddities and insane and brilliantly played plot developments in One Piece, I’m starting to rethink watching an episode every week of this anime. In episode 590, there were two main developments: a plot point revelation and a glimpse of a supposedly strong enemy. And it took an entire episode. As the Strawhats wait inside the remains of one of Punk Hazard’s laboratories, Chopper performs tests on sweat samples from the children to determine if he can assist in treating the mysterious disease that necessitated their staying at the island. What he found was NHC10 – a highly addictive drug only a handful of doctors are allowed to use. Brownbeard knows little of importance, and defends the honor of his messianic Master. Chopper, being a doctor devoted to healing the sick and injured, is righteously furious. While the revelation takes place the children succumb to their withdrawal symptoms from not being able to take their daily NHC10-laced candy. The Strawhats also find out that none of them were giants to begin with, and only grew to their size as they stayed on the island. They were all subjects of “gigantification” experiments.

Meanwhile, Sanji (still in Nami’s body) takes responsibility for saving the samurai head and decides to look for him near the lake at the center of the island, where Brook said he was heading. Zoro joins Sanji and Brook on the insistence of Nami, suspecting the duo to hatch some sort of indecent scheme on her body. Along the way, the trio is ambushed by the Yeti Cool Brothers, large Yeti-like assassins who Caesar Clown seems to hold in high regard. The trio is shown to have been defeated or knocked out by the Brothers without much of a fight.

Sanji, even in Nami’s body, will be Sanji

What a romantic.. .wait, what the hell!?

Gigantic footprint. Everything’s bigger in Punk Hazard

The Yeti Cool Brothers. Powerful foes?

The pacing of the episode wasn’t terrible (the Fishman Island arc defined “terrible pacing”), but it also isn’t taking the main plot anywhere fast. While there weren’t many obvious dragging points in the episode, there are numerous repetitive moments showing basically the same thing making them starkly superfluous and only for effect (which, if you show something in three, four, even ten times in different ways, sort of defeats the purpose). There were some comic moments that were spot on – which is more than can be said for some anime-only attempts at “Strawhat humor” – but all the little things serve only to whet an already thirsting appetite for something big to happen. Well, something literally big did happen, but I’m pretty sure most viewers doubt that even a duo as large and mysterious as the Yeti Cool Brothers can take down Zoro without incident. He’s probably sleeping from boredom.

Well, we’re running out of mysteries to solve for Punk Hazard and we’re being shown more people (or Yetis) to fight, which is always a good thing. Further good news is that a new opening has been finally released, though the Funimation releases didn’t use it yet. With all these developments we might be able to look forward to some good fights – maybe not hard won fights though, seeing how dastardly powerful the Strawhats are now. You can watch the new opening below. [by G Dino]

Author

G Dino (Gino R. Diño) is a freelance writer who loves gaming, reading, and writing - in that order. His first game was an R-Type side scrolling NES game that is so old he doesn't even remember its title. Now he plays anything from Restaurant Empire to Skyrim to Battlefield to Plants Vs. Zombies, as long as the game is worth his time in one or several aspects. He writes about gaming, technology, anime, and entertainment. Visit his personal blog Xeroavitar or contact him via [email protected].